Tuesday 24 February 2004 — This is over 20 years old. Be careful.
Running Windows Update today, I learned of a critical update: Update 833407 removes “unacceptable” symbols from the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font. As soon as I read that description, I figured swastikas were involved. As it turns out, there is more to it.
Three symbols are removed from the font: two swastikas, and one star of David. Here’s the affected section of the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font before the update:
and after:
Now I understand that many people are sensitive about swastikas, and that despite their thousand-year history they have come to be universally associated with great evil. You can agree or disagree with needing to remove them, but no one is surprised to see them go.
But who needed the star of David removed? And who agreed to remove it?
Comments
And is it really going to harm anyone that the characters are in the font? Most people don't even know about the Character Map application so there's little chance they'd ever see the character in their own daily use of the font (unless they're visiting an Aryan Nation site or something, in which case they probably aren't offended by swastikas).
And the Israeli fence is a racist, apartheid "Berlin Wall" of oppression.
Ben: I could be wrong but I believe that the Swastika image is banned in Germany so "purged" may be an accurate statement in some contexts. Perhaps that's where the "critical" nature of this update comes from? I don't support censorship of this sort. What's next? Will Microsoft have to change GDI to detect when you make a set of line draw calls to render a Swastika? Yeah, right.
There goed my future as the window-drawing guy. Oh well, I can always draw stars...
Add a comment: